


meet-cutes aren't just for the movies, my lady

by Hopeless_Hogwartian394



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Miraculous, F/M, Fluff, Friendship, ML Secret Santa, Meet-Cute, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-03
Updated: 2020-02-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:35:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22543366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hopeless_Hogwartian394/pseuds/Hopeless_Hogwartian394
Summary: The first time Adrien meets Marientte Dupain-Cheng, they're 17, awkward, and their interaction is not nearly long enough to make Adrien happy. The second time is years later, under very different circumstances. Adrien has spent the last year overseas, and is attending a Christmas Eve fancy event to make Chloé happy. Instead, he manages to find his own happiness.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Chloé Bourgeois, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Chloé Bourgeois & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Comments: 7
Kudos: 129





	meet-cutes aren't just for the movies, my lady

**Author's Note:**

> This is a gift for celestialtitania over on tumblr that got way out of hand on several levels, but i'm really digging the concept even if its nowhere near chrismas, so enjoy!

The first time Adrien ever meets Marinette Dupain-Cheng, he is 17 years old, and tagging along behind his father as the man inspects garments that will become part of the next season’s collection, and produces forceful and prolific critique at each and every item and Adrien is so, so bored.

And so, when he notices a quiet shadow hovering on the outskirts of the discussion, arms full of folded fabric and a look of intense focus as she listens in on the conversations happening in front of her. She’s about his own age and so Adrien slides on over in the hopes that he could at least talk to someone. 

“Hello,” is as far as he gets with that plan, because as soon as he opens his mouth she squeaks and scatters all the fabric in her arms all over the floor. The conversation near them stills and eyes turn to the pair as the girl bends to try and pick up everything she’s dropped.

“Marinette!” 

“Sorry, sorry!”

Adrien’s father turns away from the mess on the floor. “Let’s move on, and leave your intern here to clean up the mess she made,” he says.

Adrien looks at his father at this. ”I’ll stay and help her, pére,” he says. His father gives him a cursory nod and leaves the room, which empties behind him. 

“Hey.” he says, as he bends down to help the girl pick up fabric. “Sorry for startling you earlier.”

“Oh um, uh, not–no problem.”

He chuckles. “My name’s Adrien.”

She pauses in folding fabric. “Mari–Marinette,” she says, ducking her head away from his grin.

A moment of silence stretches between them, only punctuated by the sound of shifting fabric.

“So you’re one of my father’s interns?” He winces at the awkward question almost as soon as it’s blurted out.

“Oh! Um. Mr Agreste is my boss. I mean, he’s not my actual boss, he’s really my boss’s boss. He is still my boss though, technically, because it’s his company. That he is the boss of. I mean of course you know that, he’s your father. Because you’re Adrien, his son.” She’s rambling at him, still folding fabric and stacking it neatly, blushing furiously all the while. It’s adorable.

“So you like fashion?” he asks. She brightens at the question. 

“Yeah! I really like fashion and design, it’s what I want to do after I leave lycée. I mean, I don’t know if haute couture is really for me. N–not that I’m not grateful for this internship. Because I am! I’m learning a lot! But like I really love street fashion, and it just feels a lot less…”

“Pretentious?”

She laughs. “Yeah. A little.”

“That makes sense.”

She blinks. “It does?”

“Yeah. I don’t like it much either, to be honest.”

She lifts her head up from where she is gathering up the last pieces of fabric that still remain on the floor. “You know you can do whatever you want after highschool, not just what your parents do? Mine are bakers and I like helping them out but it’s not what I want to do for the rest of my life. And that’s okay, and they support me in that because they want me to be happy, yknow? You’re allowed to be your own person.”

That makes him pause. “Huh.”

She grins at him. “Yep. Pass me that pile?”

He does, standing, to carefully hand over the stack of folded fabric that he’s slowly been accumulating. “Here,” he says, as he moves to hand it to her, and instead, finds himself sprawled on the floor, fabric once more scattered everywhere, including draped over his head. He lets out a groan, and lifts one hand to move the folds of fabric away from his face so he can see. Marinette starts unabashedly giggling at him from across the room. “Guess that looked pretty stupid of me?”

“Just a bit,” she says, between giggles, and then, as he makes a move to try and get to his feet, she stands and moves towards him. “Need a hand?” she asks, reaching her hand out to him. 

“Please,” he says, taking her outstretched hand, which she grasps firmly and hauls him to his feet with surprising strength. He dusts himself off with a shrug, and she laughs as he tries to brush his hair back into place. 

“Here, let me,” she says, reaching for his head. He bends down a little so that she can reach, and she gently brushes fingers through his hair, neatening the errant locks. Her blue eyes are fixed intently on the top of his head, and it almost feels as though time holds its breath along with him as he watches her face as she fixes his hair. 

He comes back to himself when she steps back from him, her hands slipping from his hair. He doesn’t move for a moment, still looking at her, and she coughs awkwardly, and then bends to pick up the dropped fabric at her feet. “Help me out here,” she says, and he jolts into movement, rushing over to help her out. Together, they gather and fold the last few dropped pieces of fabric. 

The next several minutes are spent carefully collecting the last of the mess, which Adrien spends a good portion of just watching Marinette, her deft fingers that handle all the fabric so carefully and elegantly, and her dark hair, tied back with a few errant strands tucked behind her ear.

Finally, all the mess is folded and stacked into a neat and manageable pile, that Marinette gathers up into her arms. “Thank you,” she says, stepping towards the door, “for staying and helping me tidy.”

“You’re welcome,” he replies, moving eagerly to hold the door open for her. “Least I could do, since it was my fault for startling you into dropping it all.”

She moves out of the door ahead of him, pile of fabric almost obscuring her line of sight. He follows close behind her, and grins at her when she turns to face him. “I’m glad I met you, Marinette,” he says, and his grin grows wider at the sight of the faint blush that rises on her cheeks. 

“Me too,” she replies, tentatively returning his grin with a smaller one of her own. 

Before he can say anything else, however, his father strides out of the next room. “Adrien. Time to go.”

Marinette jumps in surprise at the sound of his father’s voice, even if she manages to keep ahold of her burden this time around. “I–I gotta–I have– I need to go. I need to put these away now. Goodbye, Adrien, Mr Agreste.” she stammers out, and then bolts away before he can stop her, or call out to her, or do anything that might give him a sure way of finding her again.

* * *

The second time Adrien gets to meet Marinette Dupain-Cheng is many years after the first time. He never does get to run into her again while she is still an intern, much to his disappointment, and he loses track of her after that. 

After a year away from Paris, Adrien has come back to spend Christmas at home, to see his father and, apparently, to get himself roped into attending a Christmas Eve party by Chloé, even if they’ve barely talked to each other in months. 

And so, here he finds himself, walking into a party that is full of some of the best and brightest in the fashion industry. The bright lights and the slightly too small suit he has on makes the atmosphere feel stifling, and the thought of walking back into something that so viscerally reminds him of some of the most hated parts of his childhood is almost enough to make him turn around and go back home. But–

“Adrien!!” he hears a voice call. He turns, and sees Chloé, striding towards him in a bright green gown that glitters under the lights of the room. Despite himself, he can feel some of the tension leave him at the sight of a welcoming face. “You came!”

He grins. “Hello to you too, Chloé, “ he returns, right before she pulls him into a hug. “Ooft.” He’d forgotten how tactile she is, and how tight her hugs were, as though she wants to hold her friends as close as she possibly could. 

“I’ve missed you,” she mutters, from where her face is not quite buried in his shoulder. 

“Me too. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah. Same here.”

That shocks him, just a little. Chloé, despite how much she’s apparently grown out of the spoiled brat she once was, is still not the sort to apologise, even obliquely. Adrien clears his throat to try and dispel some of the awkwardness he feels. Chloé, brash and self-confident as ever, doesn’t acknowledge it beyond a slightly stiff and awkward shake of her head.

He holds out his arm, “Well then, Chloé, shall we?”

She hooks her elbow through his, then grins. “Cmon, Adrien, you gotta meet my friend Mari. She’s like, my new favourite fashion designer, and she’s _amazing_. You’re going to love her. She made my dress for tonight, and she’s so cool. Like really Adrien, you gotta meet her, and I know she wants to meet you. I’ve told her so much about you.”

Chloé keeps up a steady stream of chatter as she drags him over to where a small knot of people are clustered around a girl in a dark blue dress. She seems… different, somehow, Adrien muses. Still as brash and self-confident as he remembers, but happier, somehow. Kinder, too. 

“Mari!” Chloé calls, as they get close to the group of people she’s been making a beeline for. The woman in the dark blue dress turns, and her polite smile morphs into something wider and more genuinely delighted. 

“Chloé!” she calls happily, and extracts herself neatly from the group she’s been talking to, including, Adrien realises, one of his father’s most serious competitors in the fashion industry. The woman walks up to them, her dress glittering under the lights as she moves to enfold Chloé in a hug. “I wondered where you’d run off to so quickly,” she says to Chloé, as she draws back from the hug to kiss both her cheeks, and then finally turns sharp eyes on Adrien, who fidgets under her direct gaze. “Hello.”

“Mari, this is Adrien. He’s the best friend I keep telling you about.” She holds out her hand to shake, and Adrien grasps it firmly. She’s shorter than either him or Chloé, and she has black hair and startlingly blue eyes, and something about her is weirdly familiar, though he can’t quite work out why. 

“Adrien, this is Marinette. She and I went to lycée together, but we didn’t become friends until I ran into her again at one of Daddy’s parties a few months ago.” He blinks at her name as she releases his hand from her firm grasp, which vaguely reminds him of, well, something that he can’t quite place. 

“Nice to meet you, Marinette.”

“Same here. Chloé talks about you a lot. She said you were overseas for this year?”

Yes. I spent this year on exchange at a university in England.”

“And how was that?”

“Good. The language took some getting used to, but I liked it.”

“What were you studying?”

“Physics. I’m working on my Masters at the moment.”

“Oh that’s awesome. I studied design, but I stayed in Paris to study and then work.”

“Yeah, Chloé mentioned you were a designer. She said you made her dress. It’s gorgeous, you’re really talented.”

Marinette’s face lights up at the compliment. “Thank you! I wanted to make her something that wasn’t her favourite yellow, just for the challenge of it. And I wanted to stick to a more traditional silhouette, because Chloé has the personality to pull off something that dramatic, you know? And...”

She continues to talk excitedly about Chloé’s dress, gesturing passionately with her hands as Adrien listens to her chatter, and Chloé nods along gracefully. And then, Marinette, while Chloé is in the middle of telling a story about some misadventure the pair of them had gotten up to while trying to get the right fabric to make this dress, starts giggling, and Adrien finally places that frustrating deja vu that Marinette has been prompting in him since Chloé had introduced them. 

“You’re Marinette!” he interrupts. Chloé’s story rambles to a clumsy stop as she and Mari– _Marinette_ turn to stare at him with matching bemused expressions.

“Yes? That’s my name?”

“No! You’re Marinette! You interned at my father’s company in highschool and I frightened you into dropping all that fabric once!”

Marinette giggles, and Adrien is struck with the sudden realisation that he’d quite like to hear that laugh every day for the rest of his life. “I can’t believe it took you so long to make the connection!”

“You look different,” he mumbles, “and, besides, Chloé called you Mari.” He gestures to Chloé, who rolls her eyes and mutters something about the trials of having such oblivious friends.

“Less of a clutz than you remember?”

“A bit. It’s a good different, though! Really! And I tripped too, remember?” A slight pause. “I’m sorry I didn’t remember you right away, really.”

Marinette laughs. “I forgive you. Make it up to me by sticking around for the rest of the night and impressing all these fancy fashion people with your good looks and charm.”

“Of course, my lady,” he says. Chloé huffs from beside them, and he glances over to her in time to catch her rolling her eyes. 

“I’m going to go find Sabrina,” she says. “She just texted me to tell me she just got here.”

“Okay.”

“See you around, Chloé,” Marinette grins. “Come find me later so we can make fun of all the stuck up industry execs.”

“You know it, Mari,” she says, and walks off into the crowd in a swirl of fabric.

“Cmon, I really do need to talk to people tonight.”

“Of course.”

“You don’t have to come with me if you don’t want to.”

“No! I want to, I promise.”

“Awesome.” Marinette’s grin is blinding, and when she hooks her arm through his, Adrien feels his heart miss a beat. “Let’s do this then.”

… 

Adrien spends the rest of the night at Marinette’s side as she makes her way around the room, making polite conversation and impressing almost all the people she talks to. Adrien is a tiny bit in awe of how easily she manages to negotiate conversations with everyone. She looks to be in her element right at this very moment, and she _shines_.

After a few hours of this though, they are both over talking to people and Marinette leads them over to an emptier patch of the room. She leans back against the wall as they watch Chloé whirl around the centre of the room, tipping her head back in a laugh.

“She’s happier than she used to be,” Adrien observes. 

“Yeah. She is,” a soft smile graces Marinette’s face, for just a moment. “I’m really proud of her.”

“Me too. I’m glad for her.” Adrien looks over to Marinette. “Do you want to head outside?”

“Yes please,” she answers. 

“Come on, then,” he says, taking her arm to walk with her to a set of doors that lead out onto a balcony. The night air is cool, and Marinette’s dress shimmers gently under the street lights. As she leans on the railing of the balcony to look out at the city, he feels a sharp drop of cold on his nose, and tears his eyes away from her to look up at the sky. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Marinette do the same, her eyes closed and her face upturned to catch the snowfall.

It’s snowing, and he stares up at the sky in awe before a gentle hand on his arm drags his eyes away and back down to Marinette, who has snow caught in her dark hair and in her eyelashes. A long moment stretches between them as he stares at her, enthralled by her face and the tiny freckles sprinkled across her nose and cheeks, and the way her lips curve up into a shy smile. It’s broken by the distant tolling of a clock striking midnight, and an enthusiastic buzzing that emanates from Marinette’s dress. She steps back as she reaches into a previously hidden pocket at her hip and pulls out her phone, which is lighting up with a succession of messages. Adrien misses her closeness almost immediately, as the sharp dampness of the still falling snow makes itself known to him.

“Sorry, give me a minute, my friends are all messaging the group chat now that it’s actually become Christmas Day,” she says as her fingers fly across the screen of her phone. She leans on her forearms against the railing as she texts, her phone held out over the open air. Adrien finds himself enthralled by the mischievous grin on her face, and the way her face lights up at the onscreen antics of her friends. Chloé was right, she’s amazing. He would would keep coming to every fashion industry event if it means he would get to see her, and talk to her, and make her smile.

_oh_

_oh wow_

He opens his mouth to say– something, to make her laugh or to ask her if they could go back inside – but, still reeling from the realisation of how much he likes her and the warm feeling spreading through his chest, what comes out of his mouth is a whispered “You’re beautiful.”

_whoops_

Marinette whirls around, thankfully without dropping her phone off the balcony, and stares at him with her mouth hanging open and a blush spreading over her cheeks. “Wh-what?!”

He takes a deep breath and shifts slightly towards her .“You’re beautiful, Marinette.” Another deep breath, to gather his courage. “Can I kiss you?” he blurts out, breathless and nervous, and hopeful.

Marinette stands in front of him for a long moment, and he can feel that little sliver of hope start to wilt in his chest before she pulls in a deep breath of her own and steps towards him, so close that he can feel her exhale gently on his skin as she fits her hands to his face. “Yes please,” she whispers reverently, before rising up and fitting her lips to his.

* * *

THE NEXT DAY: ADRIEN'S PHONE

Chlo: Hey nerd I gave Mari your number. She thinks you’re cute. If you break her heart i will show you the knife skills her parents taught me 

...

Unknown Number: Hi Adrien I hope you don’t mind but I got your number off Chloé. I had a really great time last night, thank you. 

Unknown Number: also I wanted to ask if you wanted to go on a date sometime.

[3 seconds later] 

ADRIEN: YES PLEASE


End file.
